


black dove

by openended



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood Mages, Blood Magic, Gen, Guest Starring: Solas, Neurodivergent Inquisitor, Neurodivergent Main Character, Neurodiversity, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:16:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5786554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, Five Largely-Unrelated Drabbles Of Varying Length And In No Particular Order About Anaya Trevelyan. </p>
<p>Blood mage, healer, wishes things would be just a little bit quieter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	black dove

**I.**

Three days after she ran for the ninth time, she gave herself a moment to stop moving - a moment to breathe - and the world fell into place all at the same time.

Outside was loud - too loud, too much, too fast, squirrels and fennecs and wind and trees and crystal grace and rhythmic thumping from behind a house. Outside was bright - far too bright, painfully bright, and all the colors, the green and red and purple and yellow and blue and even the browns, none of it dark mottled grey, none of it at all.

It was outside. It was loud and colorful and bright and so overwhelming she had to sit down under a tree for a while - but it was _outside_.

The templars wouldn’t give up - she wouldn’t give up, they wouldn’t give up, the Chantry doesn’t let any of them give up - but they were far enough behind that she could take a moment to sit underneath an oak tree and listen, and see.

The sun hurt her eyes if she stared at it too long. A good hurt. An outside hurt - a no-longer-surrounded-by-stone-walls hurt. The sun was warm, pleasantly warm on her skin.

Her fingers felt strange and it was two days before she realized they weren’t cold anymore.

**II.**

Haven was outside, but Haven wasn’t nice. Haven was tucked in a valley, mountains rising high on all sides - not walls but close enough to make bad days worse. Haven was crowded, too many misplaced people and not enough space for them all, filled with the clanging of swords and cries of the lost and prayers of people who thought archaic words would do anything more than cover the town in a thin film of hot, useless air.

The little cabin was quiet, but it had four walls and a ceiling and not enough windows. She slept with the door open, when she had to be there at all. Woke up to small snowdrifts just inside, soaking the carpet as they melted.

Skyhold - Skyhold is better. Skyhold is outside and on top of the mountains and open, high above everything around it except a few peaks too far away to bother her even on the worst of days. She likes Skyhold. Her room is unnecessarily large, but the windows are big and the balcony doors open wide; she sleeps with them open, because the wind feels nice.

She sits outside, on the ramparts or the walls. Sits outside in the bright sun, legs tucked underneath her, bent over her notebook. Writes everything down in detail, draws pictures if necessary - something to look back to, reflect on. Research, records, even if no one ever reads it but her.

The bridge between the main tower and the gate - that’s her favorite. In the middle of everything, with a view of the whole castle, but without shadows or walls. Soldiers pass her stiffly, like they aren’t sure what to do with the Inquisitor sitting on her bum in the middle of the walkway.

(Ignore her, that’s what they should do. Step around her and keep walking, leave her in peace. Not hesitate on the verge of saluting, or exchange looks hoping another will know what to say. Keep walking, leave her in peace. It’s disruptive, the stiff hurried walks and confused looks and hesitation.

She’s just a person, a person who’s chosen this place to work. _Keep walking_.)

Cullen walks out sometimes. Takes the right door out of his office and stands on the parapet overlooking the valley below. But he doesn’t look down, he looks up - tilts his face toward the sun. He always rushes back inside if he turns and sees her, like he’s embarrassed.

She doesn’t understand that. Why be embarrassed about enjoying the sun?

**III.**

Everyone finds out, and it’s a problem. There’s a rift and demons and a bronto caught in the middle, and a landslide that catches Dorian just the wrong way.

The break in Dorian’s leg is bad. Bones-poking-out-of-his-skin bad, about-to-pass-out-from-the-pain bad. She’s a spirit healer, a good - _excellent_ \- spirit healer, but the break is worse than what even her best spirit magic can fix. She gives him a stick to bite on, tells Bull to hold him still - he cannot, _cannot_ , move while she’s doing this - counts to four and yanks the bones back into place.

Dorian screams, then passes out, but she’s blocked out everything - sound, smell, chaos - to focus. Knife slicing through her forearm, red blood welling up and spilling over dark skin, catching against evenly-spaced scars of identical length. She closes her eyes, feels the power start to move - doesn’t see Bull’s wide eye or Varric with an expression she’ll learn means _oh not this shit again_ \- draws it up and out of her hands.

Places her palms on Dorian’s leg, fingers interlocked - left thumb right thumb left forefinger right forefinger all the way down to pinkies - so the glyph fragments tattooed on her fingers lay out perfectly. Breathes once, twice. Focuses on the surge inside. Six words, six words and a mental twist on the Fade around her, and Dorian’s bones start to knit back together.

He’ll be walking with a limp for a week, maybe leaning on a stick, but then he’ll be fine. Like it never broke.

They leave the Western Approach for Skyhold two days later, when she determines Dorian’s well enough to travel.

Her advisors are waiting for her on the stone steps. They know. Everybody knows. She wonders what soldier with what raven - _the Inquisitor’s a blood mage._

She’s a healer, she _heals_. The how of it shouldn’t matter, but somehow it does.

**IV.**

“With blood magic, it, it, it...it feels like there’s - _something_ , just underneath the surface. Swimming, right below my skin.” She closes her eyes, draws her fingers through the air. No one ever understands her drawings, not with her fingers. They make sense to her, only to her. “It’s breathing, alive. Wild. Wild and…” she opens and closes her right hand three times, grasping for the word. Tilts her head sideways, almost there. “Wild and, and looking for direction.”

She opens her eyes and straightens. “And it listens, and it argues, and it - it’s _big_. It’s big and it argues but it _listens_.”

Solas stares at her. She can’t read his face, but she can never read faces. He could be angry or happy or sad or psychotic, and she wouldn’t know. He’s silent. Whether it’s waiting for her or thinking for him, she doesn’t know. What she knows is that he’s silent.

“And when I use the Mark with it,” she opens her left palm and stares. Bare, unmarked, no longer glowing. But she feels it, a small itch - twisting and turning, _writhing_ right in the middle. “When I use the Mark and blood magic at the same time, it… _builds_ , it’s bigger and stronger and, and, and,” she blinks once, twice, squeezes her eyes shut tight as they’ll go and opens them again, “something’s trying to get _out_.”

Solas blinks. “Why are you trying to use blood magic with the Mark?”

She tilts her head the other way and squints. Disapproval, maybe. Or concern. Or interest. She clenches her jaw. He’s still unreadable. “It’s on my hand. I don’t understand it and it’s on my hand. I’m trying to understand it.”

Solas walks away, leaving her alone on the ramparts.

She sighs. People should come with signs.

**V.**

“You ran away eight times?” Cullen’s eyebrows rise up so far she’s concerned they’ll rise right off his forehead.

“Nine,” she corrects. It’s important, the ninth. The ninth is what took. The ninth is what made being dragged back to the Circle eight times worth it. The ninth is what made all those months - years, she did the math recently, staring up at the night sky in the Hinterlands with Bull snoring in the tent behind her and Varric fletching bolts by the fire - locked in a small windowless room at the top of the tower worth it.

Soldiers fight around them. Practice, it’s not real. Swords clang against each other, harsh metallic sounds grating down her spine. Someone shouts, bashes a shield into someone else’s chest. She grimaces and twists, rolls her shoulders, maybe if she stands differently the sound won’t hurt as much.

His eyebrows fall back down to a normal position. She exhales.

“Why did you keep trying?”

He’s a templar - _was_ , was a templar, the past tense for him is as important as the number is for her, she must remember _was_ \- he knows the punishment for running away, for running away and _getting caught._ No one tries more than twice, three times if they’re desperate. The little room at the top of the tower - _no, stop, breathe. Breathe breathe breathe. Outside air. Good air._

Nine. She made it nine.

That they didn’t just make her Tranquil after the fourth is miracle enough to make her consider sitting in a Chantry once in a while.

“Herald?”

She waited too long. Months - _years_ \- in that tiny room and she doesn’t know how to talk to people. Patterns and silences and rhythms, she’s always half a beat off. A quick inhale. “Not trying was worse than getting caught.”


End file.
